$5.00

12 Minutes at the Hot Club Murphy -ltd 7" EP (Messthetics #701)

12 Minutes at the Hot Club Murphy 7" EP (Messthetics #701):limited reissue of a Rosetta Stone rarity from 1982: adventurous, subtly-hued pop art from an all-star line-up of post-Homosexuals / This Heat / Rock in Opposition squat savants.Numbered second edition of 300

The full story is more complicated – and exponentially richer (as is the music!), but here's a short version, in the words of Rob Storey, the one constant in 30-plus years of Murphy variations - Federation Murphy, Orchestre Murphy, The Murphy Love Experience, Murphy Patrol, Murphy Working Stiffs, Laboratoires Murphy, etc.: (musicians performing on the EP appear in boldface)

"We had made a start as the Good For Nothings in about '77/78 and played sort of punk rock music with a line-up of Catherine O'Sullivan, Bing Selfish, Rodrigo Lodwick, Seamus Luttman-Johnson, and Robert Storey. We soon got tired of the straitjacket of the 'punk' sound and started trying other things, 'fake jazz', more theatrical elements, improvisation and performance deconstruction – which resulted in some extremely antagonistic audience reactions...

"After making the first single 'Fed Up Skank' / 'Slipping Past On The Inside', Bing was a semi-detached member of the Murphies anyway, and went on to make 'Selfish Works'. Chris Gray, Jim Whelton, Ted Barrow (who had all been associated with the Homosexuals), Lepke Buchwalter, David Doyle and Joe Torres (who were Milk from Cheltenham), Janey Haggar (Nancy Sesay), and Mick Hobbs (The Work), amongst others, became part of the pool of people who would do gigs, tours or recording sessions. It was a loose arrangement of players by the time we made 12 minutes at the Hot Club Murphy."

In the meantime, Rob's label Noise Method had at least six cassette releases in addition to the Murphy Federation single [NM1], the Hot Club Murphy 12" [NM6, 1982] and Selfish Works [NM8, though officially on El Frenzy, 1982], and there'd also been several junkets to Barcelona that resulted in the Domestic Sampler – UMYU compilation [1981] and Bing's Selfish Works (of whom and of which much more anon!). In addition to the Hot Club tracks that Chris Gray recorded at Surrey Sound, others were taped at This Heat's legendary Cold Storage studio in Brixton with Pete Bullen. Mick Hobbs left The Work (to be replaced by Jim Welton/Amos) and went on to Officer!; Catherine O'Sullivan went on to Sally Patience (who were named for a Murphies song)…
Anyway, Messthetics and Stewart Anderson’s [Boyracer+++] Milk and Alcohol label have reissued 12 Minutes at the Hot Club Murphy in its entirety as a 7" EP. The silkscreened sleeve reproduces the original front artwork (admitting there were many variations with different inks and cover stocks, and as the original screens and LetraSetting for the 12" wore out and were patched or replaced "on the fly")… There has never been musician credits until now.
$5 [counts as one CD postage in the U.S.: please choose $4.95 shipping option for overseas.]

YouTube videos are online for 'Hiding in the Forest' and 'The Encampment' showing the originals and representative artwork from the first edition of the 7". (The second edition is mostly in blue ink and came out even handsomer!)